Transcriptomic analysis of freshly purified human CD226- and CD226+ CD8+ T cell subsets isolated from the peripheral blood of healthy donors.

We recently found that loss of the activating receptor CD226 (DNAM-1) was a critical mechanism affecting CD8+ T cell responsiveness to TCR stimulation. To better understand the molecular differences between CD226- and CD226+ CD8+ T cells, we decided to perform a global transcriptional analysis of purified naive (Tn, CD62L+CD45RA+), central memory (Tcm, CD62L+CD45RA-) and terminal effector memory (Temra, CD62L-CD45RA+) CD226+ and CD226- CD8+ T cells using next generation RNA sequencing. Total RNA was extracted using RNeasy Micro kit (QIAGEN) and the sequencing was performed using next generation RNA sequencing